


Apoapsis

by aspiepatsy



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Multi, Other, i dont know what im doing at this point, i havent written a serious fic in like a year so bear with me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 01:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20884037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiepatsy/pseuds/aspiepatsy
Summary: On an unremarkable day, in a rather remarkable universe, Lady de Sardet takes her first fateful steps onto Teer Fradee, only to find that there is nothing so alien as the secrets of human nature.





	Apoapsis

**Author's Note:**

> “It is true, then, shepherd, that you people are sorcerers?”  
“By no means, little lady. Only here we live nearer the stars, and know what is happening up yonder better than the folk in the plain.”
> 
> \- Alphonse Daudet -

In the absence of a clock, De Sardet measured the time by the whirring and clicking of the nanobots squirming under her skin, checkpoint lights pinging under her skin as they trotted along her nervous system and soft tissue to recalibrate her implants. No one could quite explain why magic didn’t work as well off-planet, maybe the laws of physics just didn’t allow it – but Sidney never balked at the need for the nanobots, it was like walking through a wheat field, feeling the soft fibres and long grass cling to your skin. Constantin on the other hand…the entire colony could hear the doctors yelling at him to stay still from the other room.

Dragging him to the docks had been the true painful experience, and Sidney had earned herself a second dose of nanobots to heal the fracture in her right cheekbone as a result of finishing the bar fight Constantin had started. She was all for letting it heal naturally, but the Nauts insisted, fearing that the broken skin above the fracture was an infection risk and they weren’t knowing for keeping long-haul antibiotics aboard their vessels.

Absent-mindedly, she palmed the strange sigil her mother had pressed into her fingers from her pockets, recalling her gnarled knuckles sharp against her skin as though the mere brush of their hands was enough to tear her skin. The decaying mark burned into her fingertips as she ran it between her hands, even on the sections where the carving had been rubbed flat by time, almost as though her mind was filling in the gaps. Peculiar, to say the least.

In her head, she began to count each bot as it passed a checkpoint as she flipped the relic in the gaps between her fingers, attempting to shake off the odd sensation. 14 bots had ticked, planting markers beneath her skin before the doors shuddered open, tearing De Sardet from her reverie. Frantically, she shoved the sigil back into her suit pocket as the Naut physician walked in, his tattooed hands dancing over the hovering interface. Unlike the physicians back at the palace, he didn’t attempt to make small talk, or even ask any question beyond checking if she’d had zero G training, which, she had and so, he just let the silence fill the room again as he read over her results.

Having finally looked at her properly for the first time since he walked in, the Naut placed his datapad beside the numerous monitors. “What about that mark? It’s not noted on your file.”

“It’s a birthmark.” Sidney’s nose crinkled as he pushed a scanner pulled from somewhere in his coat up to her face, forcing her to turn her head to the mark was fully exposed to the device.

“Hmm.” The physician grumbled, his brows climbing up his forehead as he intently kept track of the readings flooding over his scanner. “Alright, you can go. The bots’ll get washed out when you get on the ship.”

“Thanks.” ‘_For nothing.’ _Sidney tacked on in her mind, cringing inwardly.

While the technology was there for self-dissolving nanobots, getting on a Naut ship meant a mandatory I.D.C, or internal decontamination cleanse which was about as pleasing as when you attempt to throw up and it comes out your nose instead so, suffice to say, Sidney was less than eager to board the ship than she seemed.

Pushing herself off the rigid examination table, Sidney shivered as the doors slid shut behind her, the light above the entrance console flicking from red to green. Before she could even figure out which way to go to get back out onto the docks, Constantin tumbled from the neighbouring room, brushing himself off.

“Well I never-” He huffed, his cheeks beginning to glow orange as the bots attempted to lower his stress levels, which only made their presence more invasive, obviously agitating him further and well, it was a vicious cycle. “Ah, my fair cousin!”

Constantin shrugged on his embroidered coat, plucked straight from the subterranean cabinets of the D’Orsay palace and began positively skipping towards De Sardet, the artificial shimmer beneath his skin melting back to a tranquil blue, as though the comforting sight of a friend whisked away his anxieties.

“I see months of preparation has done nothing to harden your constitution.” Linking her arm with his, as was their custom, Sidney pushed her weight against him slightly, not quite hard enough to hurt but enough to force him into keeping his balance.

“At least I can handle a deco wash.” Constantin muttered as he straightened up, just loud enough to be heard and keep a jovial tone, but not so loud that anyone would hear him use what his father would call “commoner speak”.

Though she gave him a sharp side glance, Sidney kept her mouth shut, instead letting him lead them from the medical complex and onto the docks.

It wasn’t as long a journey as she thought, though she’d never left the walls of the original colony, so having everything right next to each other on the port was an alien concept at the very least. Constantin’s voice hummed in her ear the whole way, buzzing about all the sights they’d pass on their way to Teer Fradee, the route they were taking, even the specs of the ship they would be travelling on – the Sea-Horse, spearheaded by one Captain Vasco.

*

A sandstorm hadn’t passed over in several weeks, and as a result, the docks were once again a pristine, shielded bastion of refined metals from all over Mars and the various decals and identifying markers of each ship visible against their off-white hulls. On any other port, the Naut ships would stick out like sore thumbs, but the ships of Serene were few and far between, only consisting of a few flagships and private liners, while the Nauts had numerous frigates, freighters, civilian liners, emergency transports, the whole 9 yards.

Gods, finding someone in this crowd would be like finding a needle in a haystack-

“I’m not paying you to break my merchandise, lad!” A distinct, softly accented voice rang above the din of the port from the direction of their terminal, and before Sidney could even find the caller, Constantin had already broken away from her side and was sprinting towards their boarding area.

As Sidney trudged after him, red dust puffing under her boots with each step, she briefly recalled the year she bought a gravity leash for his birthday to keep him out of trouble…Maybe it isn’t as bad an idea as everyone thought.

Weaving throughout the crowd, De Sardet felt a hand close over her shoulder.

“Green Blood!” Kurt practically leapt from nowhere, his eyes glinting under the lights of the notice boards.

Still clad in the same dusty, battle-worn exo-armour, Kurt both dressed and acted like a relic. Not that that was a bad thing, it was just a rare sight in Serene. A phaser hung from his belt, held together with good old-fashioned electrical tape, partnered with a standard issue flux blaster in slightly better shape. Despite his ramshackle demeanour, the cracks and scratches in his suit were absent of silt and sand and his temporal implant had a new coating of exodium to protect the fragile network of wires packed into the tiny plate, unlike the rest of the Coin Guard they’d passed on their way to the port.

“Oh Gods, I don’t need another tearful goodbye from you too.” De Sardet let out a sigh of faux exhaustion as she spoke, adding a rather theatrical eye roll for good measure.

“Ha, fat chance(!) No, I’m just here to catch a ride.” Kurt began to walk down towards the platform, expecting De Sardet to follow. Which she did, after a brief pause to go over his sudden declaration.

“You’re coming with us? What happened to all that hubbub about our ‘impending farewell’?” Sidney probed, eyes narrowing suspiciously – Kurt wasn’t the most straightforward man and fond of his tests, was he truly planning on putting her through the ringer this close to her departure?

The master-of-arms gave her an almost incredulous look in return, the lines around his eyes growing more defined as his brow furrowed. “You don’t expect to actually handle Constantin on your own, do you?”

Still confused but pleasantly surprised, Sidney gave a conceding gesture. “Fair point.”

Kurt extended his arm in a stiff mockery of formal etiquette. “Right then, let’s get down there before the dear boy puts his foot in his mouth.”

By the time the crowd thinned out and the two of them descended to the platform, Constantin was excitedly waving them over, his hair billowing under the harsh gusts from the far reaches of the docks, a result of the air vents trying to combat the warm engines of recently landed shuttles.

“I take it you’re Lady de Sardet?” Vasco had already appeared withdrawn from his exposure to Constantin, but Sidney had figured it was simply because he wasn’t used to someone so flamboyant, but the way his shoulders stiffened and the way he kept his arms tucked behind him when she finally joined them gave her the notion he was less than happy to ferry a couple of nobles on such a long haul.

Giving a cordial nod, Sidney eyed the I.D.C gate through the gap in the airlock as one of the porters carried an oddly shaped crate aboard. Worried that the Captain might see her grow pale, she opted for a distraction. “Your ship, have you had her for long?”

“It’s a _space_ship.” Vasco’s retort practically released a spray of venom in the air between them, his lip curling on the emphasis.

Never one to keep a cap on her emotions, or let things slide for that matter, Sidney glanced around the expanse of the port, shrugging.

“In case you hadn’t noticed,_ every_ ship down here is a spaceship so are you just compensating for something, or?” Sidney trailed off, crossing her arms and heard the vague sound of Kurt snorting behind her before breaking out in a fit of coughing to try hide it.

“No(!) I just don’t like people making her out to be some tugboat or planet cruiser.” Vasco’s lips pressed together in a fine line, the outlines of his tattoos bending as his face twitched. He could only pray that these coddled royals wouldn’t be this insufferable the whole way to Teer Fradee.

“Hm, I’m sure.” Sidney uncrossed her arms and waved a hand in the direction of the SC/CV Sea-Horse. “When are we boarding?”

“Whenever you like – moon’s almost in position so if you want a few moments to get your bearings, be my guest.” Vasco muttered, stepping back to give them a way up the gangplank to the entrance of the ship.

A civilian/cargo hybrid, the Sea-Horse was a patented Naut ship, there was no mistaking that, her hull painted an intoxicatingly dark espresso and the bow was practically covered in these ridged rivets, obviously lined with exodium, judging by the iridescent hue swirling over their surface beneath the whirling white lights. Sidney vaguely knew that these rivets had nothing to do with the actual structure of the ship, but where known as “barnacles” among the Nauts, something to do with the length of time they spent out in the cold expanse or whatever it was.

Constantin tripped over himself trying to get up to the airlock, Sidney and Kurt trailing behind. The governor-to-be could hardly stand still as he reached the deco wash apparatus, concentration branded on his face as he tried to keep as still as possible, yet he still flinched as thousands of tiny syringes pierced through his skin, flushing a metallic, pale blue liquid into his veins while one coaxed the nanobots from his system. Once the metal retracted and the apparatus closed back in on itself to replace the syringes, he lunged through the airlock and onto the ship.

As the airlock closed, he could hear Kurt’s reassuring voice as Sidney stepped in for her deco wash, but it barely had time to register in his mind as the bridge came into view.

While the private liners he’d enjoyed as part of his heritage were only concerned with lounging areas, bars and game rooms, the Sea-Horse felt like a military cruiser by comparison.

The ship appeared to exist on levels, interlocking silvery platforms hovered throughout the entire space, harnesses draped from the rafters, some of them empty, some of them holding Naut techs rappelling across the interior, inspecting the vents and electrical panels. In the very back of the room, a large, deliberately designed door was covered in an energy gate, the fizzing red bars illuminating the brass plate overhead that read ‘Captain’s Quarters’.

The artificial gravity was far lighter than the D’Orsay colony, though his boots were still magnetised and try as he might to run the length of the bridge, his feet felt like cinder blocks. No matter, he’d adjust in time. Turning on his heels, he noticed Sidney and Kurt, both less than vigorous after the invasive boarding procedure.

“Isn’t this just the greatest thing you’ve ever seen, fair cousin?” Rushing up to her, or rather, half-running, half-limping, Constantin grabbed her hands, his eyes already beginning to sting under the rotund lights, clinging to the roof and moving along the corrugated surface like insects.

Before Sidney could answer, Captain Vasco seemed to materialise behind her and Kurt, his studded collar reflecting the light in various directions, the shadows thrown across his face by his hat bringing out the colour of his tattoos.

“Glad to see one of you appreciates craftsmanship.” He smiled, despite the pointed remark, and pushed his way past De Sardet and her guard. Resting one hand on the hilt of his blade, Vasco gave Constantin a hearty slap on the back. “Come, let me give you a tour.”

As the two of them moved away, Sidney could see Vasco nodding slowly as Constantin began chattering away, in the same manner one does when humouring a child. As she gave the bridge a cursory glance, she noticed Kurt eyeing her oddly.

“What?” She paused, leaning back slightly, looking around to see if he was looking at anything in particular, but he wasn’t. Just her. “What?!” She pressed again, slightly shriller, her brows raised and eyes widening in question.

“I give you five days before he throws you out the airlock.”


End file.
